12.08.1990 | 01.20.1991
MICAH LEXIER | MICAH LEXIER

Micah Lexier is a Toronto artist whose work examines the codes and conditioning through which male identity is formulated in our society and thus how patriarchal culture is constructed. His is a somewhat courageous investigation in an era when much of artistic discourse is focused on the ‘other’, on attacking patriarchal constructs from the outside. Lexier gives us a rare glimpse of this bastion from the point of view of an insider, or at least one who has been subject to the rites and rituals of passage which, from childhood on up, delineate what will be expected of a boy when he becomes a man.

Among the images Lexier has used to this end have been illustrations from children’s dictionaries that were in use during and prior to his own childhood. The reasons for this are twofold, one being the authoritative role that dictionaries play in our culture. As well, their appropriated nature allows him to transcend the personal and present intimate memories and relationships as public and universal. These images, at one time largely figurative — now less so, putting more onus on Lexier for their connotations — are worked and reworked until he is satisfied with their presentation. Lexier has the pieces fabricated to his specifications, a fact which frees him from the limitations of his own capabilities. The result is work that has the look of a commercial graphic display or, as critic John Scott once remarked, of a prize-winning science project. This format is in keeping with the choice of imagery in its depersonalized quality, allowing people to have their own individual relationships to the work in much the same way that they do to advertising.

Through the medium of these technologically engaging pieces, Lexier is able to reveal in a remarkably poetic manner the anxiety in human relationships brought about by, for example, prohibitions against touching and expressions of intimacy, or dealing with the aging process in a society that puts such a high value on youth and beauty. Overall, the tone of the work is affirmative. In giving voice to the hidden conditioning that shapes male identity, Lexier’s work displays a remarkable honesty and insight as well as an underlying sense of responsibility and accountability.

Micah Lexier’s work is represented by Galerie Brenda Wallace in Montreal.

Organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery with funding assistance from The Canada Council.